Berkeley resident becomes Peace Corps' oldest volunteer

When President John F. Kennedy created the Peace Corps in 1961, Margaret Pratley was tempted to join but didn't because she was married with children.

It wasn't until 25 years later, at age 60 and divorced, that Pratley finally entered the Peace Corps and left for Lesotho near South Africa. That was the first of three separate tours around the world, the last of which ended just four months ago.

In April, when the 81-year-old Berkeley resident finished two years of teaching English in Thailand, she became the oldest member of the Peace Corps' 7,749 volunteers.

On Aug. 8, Pratley received the President's Volunteer Service award at a ceremony in Oakland from Peace Corps Director Ron Tschetter, a former volunteer in India in 1966-68.

In addition to Lesotho and Thailand, Pratley had served in Sri Lanka in 1990 and 1991.

The Peace Corps is pushing to get more older Americans like Pratley to volunteer oversees. Currently, only 5 percent of the volunteers about 380 are older than 50.

For Pratley, joining the Peace Corps wasn't a tough decision in 1961. Her two grown children lived in Arizona and Florida, and she was divorced.

"It was easy," Pratley said. "I didn't have a lot of material things tying me down. I asked the recruiter what kind of qualifications do I need and he said well, you have to be at least 18,' and I was 60. It was one of the best decisions I ever made.

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Tschetter said that although graduating college students will always be the "bread and butter" of the Peace Corps, it's people like Pratley who give the organization extra credibility.

"These people have 30 to 35 years' experience," Tschetter said. "They bring an immediate amount of respect and maturity to the job. I just think they have an enormous amount of potential."

How did it feel to be the oldest volunteer in the Peace Corps? Good.

"I found I could do just the same things they were teaching me in the training as the other young people," Pratley said. "The other volunteers didn't treat me like grandma. I do think they thought I'm a little nuts though."

Pratley said she found a renewed sense of worth living and working with people oversees. In the United States, she said, everything centers around youth.

"I walk down Shattuck Avenue and young people don't even see me," Pratley said. "It's weird. In our culture, we age and we're kind of thrown away. You go to a country outside the U.S. and you get kudos for living."

In addition to helping others and putting a human face on America abroad, Pratley said being in the Peace Corps is the way to see another place unencumbered by the rush of vacation travel.

"It was easy for me because I'm not a tourist, I'm a traveler," Pratley said. "To (be in the Peace Corps) you have to be willing to accept the differences and enjoy the differences. It's easy if you really care. You live in a community at the level of the people you work with."

Pratley said she got used to 100-degree days and 85-degree nights in Thailand, with no air conditioning. And she liked it. She also liked being an older woman in another culture.

"They would ask me my age and they would just go slack-jawed," Pratley said. "I got a lot of great feedback for being 80."